Leave a twig for the birds to perch on... don't let the capitalists do your thinking for you... if you are in northern Minnesota, stop on in; the coffee is always hot and the cookie jar is full... looking forward to the day when the real decisions in America are made by working class families gathered around the kitchen table... new postings daily...Yours in the struggle...Alan L. Maki

Let's talk...

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

"...With the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx’s biting critique of capitalism — that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive — cannot be so easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote."

Conclusion...

"That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws. If policymakers don’t discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the world may just unite. Marx may yet have his revenge."

ADAM BERRY / GETTY IMAGES

The grave of German philosopher and economic theorist Karl Marx, remembered as the founder of modern socialism and communism, in Highgate Cemetery in London

Marx’s Revenge: How Class Struggle Is Shaping the World

Karl Marx was supposed to be dead and buried. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s Great Leap Forward into capitalism, communism faded into the quaint backdrop of James Bond movies or the deviant mantra of Kim Jong Un. The class conflict that Marx believed determined the course of history seemed to melt away in a prosperous era of free trade and free enterprise. The far-reaching power of globalization, linking the most remote corners of the planet in lucrative bonds of finance, outsourcing and “borderless” manufacturing, offered everybody from Silicon Valley tech gurus to Chinese farm girls ample opportunities to get rich. Asia in the latter decades of the 20th century witnessed perhaps the most remarkable record of poverty alleviation in human history — all thanks to the very capitalist tools of trade, entrepreneurship and foreign investment. Capitalism appeared to be fulfilling its promise — to uplift everyone to new heights of wealth and welfare.

Or so we thought. With the global economy in a protracted crisis, and workers around the world burdened by joblessness, debt and stagnant incomes, Marx’s biting critique of capitalism — that the system is inherently unjust and self-destructive — cannot be so easily dismissed. Marx theorized that the capitalist system would inevitably impoverish the masses as the world’s wealth became concentrated in the hands of a greedy few, causing economic crises and heightened conflict between the rich and working classes. “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole,” Marx wrote.

A growing dossier of evidence suggests that he may have been right. It is sadly all too easy to find statistics that show the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are not. A September study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington noted that the median annual earnings of a full-time, male worker in the U.S. in 2011, at $48,202, were smaller than in 1973. Between 1983 and 2010, 74% of the gains in wealth in the U.S. went to the richest 5%, while the bottom 60% suffered a decline, the EPI calculated. No wonder some have given the 19th century German philosopher a second look. In China, the Marxist country that turned its back on Marx, Yu Rongjun was inspired by world events to pen a musical based on Marx’s classic Das Kapital. “You can find reality matches what is described in the book,” says the playwright.

That’s not to say Marx was entirely correct. His “dictatorship of the proletariat” didn’t quite work out as planned. But the consequence of this widening inequality is just what Marx had predicted: class struggle is back. Workers of the world are growing angrier and demanding their fair share of the global economy. From the floor of the U.S. Congress to the streets of Athens to the assembly lines of southern China, political and economic events are being shaped by escalating tensions between capital and labor to a degree unseen since the communist revolutions of the 20th century. How this struggle plays out will influence the direction of global economic policy, the future of the welfare state, political stability in China, and who governs from Washington to Rome. What would Marx say today? “Some variation of: ‘I told you so,’” says Richard Wolff, a Marxist economist at the New School in New York. “The income gap is producing a level of tension that I have not seen in my lifetime.”

Tensions between economic classes in the U.S. are clearly on the rise. Society has been perceived as split between the “99%” (the regular folk, struggling to get by) and the “1%” (the connected and privileged superrich getting richer every day). In a Pew Research Center poll released last year, two-thirds of the respondents believed the U.S. suffered from “strong” or “very strong” conflict between rich and poor, a significant 19-percentage-point increase from 2009, ranking it as the No. 1 division in society.

The heightened conflict has dominated American politics. The partisan battle over how to fix the nation’s budget deficit has been, to a great degree, a class struggle. Whenever President Barack Obama talks of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to close the budget gap, conservatives scream he is launching a “class war” against the affluent. Yet the Republicans are engaged in some class struggle of their own. The GOP’s plan for fiscal health effectively hoists the burden of adjustment onto the middle and poorer economic classes through cuts to social services. Obama based a big part of his re-election campaign on characterizing the Republicans as insensitive to the working classes. GOP nominee Mitt Romney, the President charged, had only a “one-point plan” for the U.S. economy — “to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules.”

Amid the rhetoric, though, there are signs that this new American classism has shifted the debate over the nation’s economic policy. Trickle-down economics, which insists that the success of the 1% will benefit the 99%, has come under heavy scrutiny. David Madland, a director at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, believes that the 2012 presidential campaign has brought about a renewed focus on rebuilding the middle class, and a search for a different economic agenda to achieve that goal. “The whole way of thinking about the economy is being turned on its head,” he says. “I sense a fundamental shift taking place.”

The ferocity of the new class struggle is even more pronounced in France. Last May, as the pain of the financial crisis and budget cuts made the rich-poor divide starker to many ordinary citizens, they voted in the Socialist Party’s François Hollande, who had once proclaimed: “I don’t like the rich.” He has proved true to his word. Key to his victory was a campaign pledge to extract more from the wealthy to maintain France’s welfare state. To avoid the drastic spending cuts other policymakers in Europe have instituted to close yawning budget deficits, Hollande planned to hike the income tax rate to as high as 75%. Though that idea got shot down by the country’s Constitutional Council, Hollande is scheming ways to introduce a similar measure. At the same time, Hollande has tilted government back toward the common man. He reversed an unpopular decision by his predecessor to increase France’s retirement age by lowering it back down to the original 60 for some workers. Many in France want Hollande to go even further. “Hollande’s tax proposal has to be the first step in the government acknowledging capitalism in its current form has become so unfair and dysfunctional it risks imploding without deep reform,” says Charlotte Boulanger, a development official for NGOs.

His tactics, however, are sparking a backlash from the capitalist class. Mao Zedong might have insisted that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” but in a world where das kapital is more and more mobile, the weapons of class struggle have changed. Rather than paying out to Hollande, some of France’s wealthy are moving out — taking badly needed jobs and investment with them. Jean-Émile Rosenblum, founder of online retailer Pixmania.com, is setting up both his life and new venture in the U.S., where he feels the climate is far more hospitable for businessmen. “Increased class conflict is a normal consequence of any economic crisis, but the political exploitation of that has been demagogic and discriminatory,” Rosenblum says. “Rather than relying on (entrepreneurs) to create the companies and jobs we need, France is hounding them away.”

The rich-poor divide is perhaps most volatile in China. Ironically, Obama and the newly installed President of Communist China, Xi Jinping, face the same challenge. Intensifying class struggle is not just a phenomenon of the slow-growth, debt-ridden industrialized world. Even in rapidly expanding emerging markets, tension between rich and poor is becoming a primary concern for policymakers. Contrary to what many disgruntled Americans and Europeans believe, China has not been a workers’ paradise. The “iron rice bowl” — the Mao-era practice of guaranteeing workers jobs for life — faded with Maoism, and during the reform era, workers have had few rights. Even though wage income in China’s cities is growing substantially, the rich-poor gap is extremely wide. Another Pew study revealed that nearly half of the Chinese surveyed consider the rich-poor divide a very big problem, while 8 out of 10 agreed with the proposition that the “rich just get richer while the poor get poorer” in China.

Resentment is reaching a boiling point in China’s factory towns. “People from the outside see our lives as very bountiful, but the real life in the factory is very different,” says factory worker Peng Ming in the southern industrial enclave of Shenzhen. Facing long hours, rising costs, indifferent managers and often late pay, workers are beginning to sound like true proletariat. “The way the rich get money is through exploiting the workers,” says Guan Guohau, another Shenzhen factory employee. “Communism is what we are looking forward to.” Unless the government takes greater action to improve their welfare, they say, the laborers will become more and more willing to take action themselves. “Workers will organize more,” Peng predicts. “All the workers should be united.”

That may already be happening. Tracking the level of labor unrest in China is difficult, but experts believe it has been on the rise. A new generation of factory workers — better informed than their parents, thanks to the Internet — has become more outspoken in its demands for better wages and working conditions. So far, the government’s response has been mixed. Policymakers have raised minimum wages to boost incomes, toughened up labor laws to give workers more protection, and in some cases, allowed them to strike. But the government still discourages independent worker activism, often with force. Such tactics have left China’s proletariat distrustful of their proletarian dictatorship. “The government thinks more about the companies than us,” says Guan. If Xi doesn’t reform the economy so the ordinary Chinese benefit more from the nation’s growth, he runs the risk of fueling social unrest.

Marx would have predicted just such an outcome. As the proletariat woke to their common class interests, they’d overthrow the unjust capitalist system and replace it with a new, socialist wonderland. Communists “openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions,” Marx wrote. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.” There are signs that the world’s laborers are increasingly impatient with their feeble prospects. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets of cities like Madrid and Athens, protesting stratospheric unemployment and the austerity measures that are making matters even worse.

So far, though, Marx’s revolution has yet to materialize. Workers may have common problems, but they aren’t banding together to resolve them. Union membership in the U.S., for example, has continued to decline through the economic crisis, while the Occupy Wall Street movement fizzled. Protesters, says Jacques Rancière, an expert in Marxism at the University of Paris, aren’t aiming to replace capitalism, as Marx had forecast, but merely to reform it. “We’re not seeing protesting classes call for an overthrow or destruction of socioeconomic systems in place,” he explains. “What class conflict is producing today are calls to fix systems so they become more viable and sustainable for the long run by redistributing the wealth created.”

Despite such calls, however, current economic policy continues to fuel class tensions. In China, senior officials have paid lip service to narrowing the income gap but in practice have dodged the reforms (fighting corruption, liberalizing the finance sector) that could make that happen. Debt-burdened governments in Europe have slashed welfare programs even as joblessness has risen and growth sagged. In most cases, the solution chosen to repair capitalism has been more capitalism. Policymakers in Rome, Madrid and Athens are being pressured by bondholders to dismantle protection for workers and further deregulate domestic markets. Owen Jones, the British author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, calls this “a class war from above.”

There are few to stand in the way. The emergence of a global labor market has defanged unions throughout the developed world. The political left, dragged rightward since the free-market onslaught of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, has not devised a credible alternative course. “Virtually all progressive or leftist parties contributed at some point to the rise and reach of financial markets, and rolling back of welfare systems in order to prove they were capable of reform,” Rancière notes. “I’d say the prospects of Labor or Socialists parties or governments anywhere significantly reconfiguring — much less turning over — current economic systems to be pretty faint.”

That leaves open a scary possibility: that Marx not only diagnosed capitalism’s flaws but also the outcome of those flaws. If policymakers don’t discover new methods of ensuring fair economic opportunity, the workers of the world may just unite. Marx may yet have his revenge.

I was asked a question; this was my answer.

At a recent forum in Thief River Falls, Minnesota where I was on a panel discussing Minnesota's financial woes, I was asked what I would do if I was governor.

This is a fair question.

This was my answer:

Please keep in mind as I proceed with my thoughts that there is a "fare" and a "fair." One is spelled "f-a-r-e" and means something completely different from "fair" spelled "f-a-i-r."

If I were elected governor of Minnesota the very first reforms I would implement to solve the state's budget problems would be:

1. A hefty tax on the rich like Mark Dayton promised as he campaigned for election but reneged on once elected.

2. Substantially increase the taconite tax; the mining companies are robbing us blind leaving us with poverty and pits filled with pollution while they abscond with the profits. This has to end.

3. Place a really hefty tax on the forestry industry in the form of stumpage fees; cut down any tree and you pay what the tree is really worth.

4. I would place toll booths at the entrances to each and every casino in Minnesota charging the exact same fee Minnesotans are charged to enter our State Parks. Anyone who can afford to gamble can afford such a fee. I would also initiate a "gambling license" on all gamblers. Just like a fishing license

Like most of you, I am fed up with this "circus in the Cities." Democrats and Republicans don't know the difference between the words "f-a-r-e" and "f-a-i-r;" we should give them all a dictionary not our votes.

I think most Minnesotans would agree with these four solutions. So, what kind of democracy do we have where politicians won't do what people want and expect?

It's just like the priorities at the national level... like they say in the Navy--- it's a SNAFU. If you don't know what a S-N-A-F-U stands for, look it up in the Urban Dictionary on your computer when you get home.

If the United States government would stop spending our tax dollars on this insane militarism and all these dirty imperialist wars we would have the money to put people to work solving the problems of the people.

I recently read this little book by former Democratic Vice-president under FDR, Henry Wallace, "Sixty Million Jobs." I would encourage everyone to read this book because it was in 1945 when this book was published to support the Full Employment Act of 1945 when Democrats and Republicans--- at Wall Street's insistence--- decided not to take Henry Wallace's advice provided in this book that our country began going way off track.

Henry Wallace pointed out that Peace will put everyone to work which will solve just about every major problem we have in this country.

Can the Penokees be saved by people attacking workers' rights?

Question...

Who gave their consent to make this a "two-party system" where only one class gets representation?

How capitalism works...

How capitalism works explained from a worker's perspective...

Abba Ramos, a veteran organizer in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union:

"If they can get a trained monkey to unload that boxcar tomorrow morning, rest assured, they'll have them over there and they'll have some bananas for lunch, and you'll be out on the street looking for work. Simple as that. You've got to remember, they follow only one rule of economic law, and that's that maximum production-minimum cost yields the greatest amount of profit. They don't deviate from that."

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Taking it to the streets... Obama has to go.

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* WPA - three million new jobs.

* CCC - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.

Search This Blog

Follow and support the important working class' victory at the polls in Canada

Canadian workers and their New Democratic Party are blazing the path of independence from the big-business controlled political parties. Manitoba will be having elections in the fall. Workers here in the United States should be paying attention to Canadian politics as there is a lot to learn. Ask your union to link its websites to the Canadian Labour Congress, New Democratic Party and Manitoba NDP.

Also, I would encourage you to paste this into your own personal blogs, web sites and FaceBook and other social netwoking sites.

Contact info...

About Me

I have been involved in the peace, labor, civil rights, and environmental movements for over 30 years, and I am a socialist. I would encourage everyone to get involved in promoting the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which came into existence on December 10, 1948; we should strive to use the yearly anniversary of this document to popularize it. We need to struggle to create a more progressive, socially just society where all working people receive real living wages and have a voice at work, and in their communities. I have worked with casino workers across Minnesota who are trying to organize a union. I have worked with people in northern Minnesota struggling to save the Big Bog, the primary freshwater aquifer--- this bog is being mined for peat. In my spare time during the spring and fall you can find me fly fishing on the Dark River, a pristine designated trout stream;in the winter ice fishing on Lake-of-the-Woods.
I look forward to hearing from you. Nothing human is alien to me.

Important Notice...

Due to recent budget cuts and the cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions and the continued decline of the economy, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

Building a new era of justice and peace

The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil...What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.

Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas which will execerbate the problems surrounding the failing capitalist economy, and ideas devoid of common sense.

In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Where is the "change?"

This is the change Americans want, and the change we need:

A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!

We would be redistributing the wealth as we are planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty by keeping people healthy and getting them well when sick.

Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?

The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.

The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.

These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.

The time has come to talk about working class Marxist politics and the economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess to clean up.

Capitalism is on the skids to oblivion and unless we take a "left turn" we will continue down this road to perdition.

Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depression intensifies while wars rage on.

The times and conditions call for "building a new era of justice and peace;" this is one step in that direction; this is the change the American people voted for.

Contact Barack Obama, let him know what is on your mind...

A gift returned...

Thank you for the 3 bottles of wine that you sent me as season’s greetings. I wish to you, your family and everybody in the Embassy a happy new year. Good health and progress to you all.

Unhappily, I noticed that the wine you have sent me has been produced in the Golan Heights. I have been taught since I was very young not to steal and not to accept products of theft. So I cannot possibly accept this gift and I must return it back to you.

As you know, your country occupies illegally the Golan Heights which belongs to Syria, according to the International Law and numerous decisions of the International Community.

I take the opportunity to express my hope that Israel will find security within its internationally recognized borders and the terrorist activities against Israel territory by Hamas or anybody else will be contained and made impossible, but I also hope that your government will cease practicing the policy of collective punishment which was applied on a mass scale by Hitler and his armies.

Actions such as those of these days of the Israel military in Gaza remind the Greek people of holocausts such as in Kalavrita or Doxato or Distomo and certainly in the ghetto of Warsaw.

With these thoughts allow me to express to you my best wishes for you, the Israeli people and all the people of our region of the world.

Athens, 30/12/2008

Theodoros Pangalos, Member of Parliament (Greece)

Auto workers fight for union recognition 1930's

This demonstration was organized by the Trade Union Unity League under the leadership of Phil Raymond who was an organizer of the auto workers

Everybody knows...

Historic victory

Communist Elected President of Cyprus

AKEL anti-fascist, anti-imperialist elected

Congratulations to AKEL and Dimitris Christofias.... GC of AKEL and President of the House of Representatives comrade Dimitris Christofias and GC of KKE (Communist Party Of Greece) comrade Aleca Papariga at the rally against the war in Iraq a few hundred meters towards the USA Embassy in Nicosia

Madam Labor Secretary

International Women’s Day

Ann Holdreith

Michigan poet--- The poetry of Ann Holdreith merges the mystical with the everyday. A chapter of her work is included in "Beyond the Lines", an anthology of Michigan authors published by Plainview Press. Her publishing credits also include: Wayne State University, Gravity Presses, Dixie Phoenix, Poetry Motel, Free Fall, Snakeskin, Gravity Webzine, Stirring (Best Love Poems), Aether, Friction Magazine and a Pushcart Prize nomination. Ann has taught for the Detroit Writer's Voice and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate in Fine Art and Literature from the University of Detroit. She has featured at the Michigan Opera Theatre, The Detroit Festival for the Arts and Spring Fed Arts of Detroit. Her riveting performance style synthesizes her background as an actress, vocalist, dancer and performance artist. Ann has been teaching her Fire Seed workshop, designed to free the authentic self, since 1987. Her work is dedicated to the full expression and elevation of the human spirit.

Autumn Sky

By: Ann Holdreith

On the ride home from Toledo, from a worn out school resurrected for good honest men, for men with kids and grandkids, guys who eat sugar doughnuts and wink while they hammer-out fenders and hurl the carcasses of metal beasts, against autumn’s haunted sky,I wonder if they remember the grip of thighs around engine-lessmuscle and sweat, ragged dirty hair assaulting the wind, buttocks and back pounding with hooves that know exactly where they belong on this earth.

On the way from Toledo, a pulsing cloud of blackbirds hurls its wings against the dying blue;dark umbrellas opening to summer’s last ride.

Carlton, Minnesota

Along the North Shore of Lake Superior

"Peace Bridge" demonstration

St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota

Democratic majority in the Michigan House abandons casino workers...

Wednesday, August 8, 2007--- Lansing, Michigan. By a shameful vote of 63 to 41... not a single Michigan Legislator--- with the exception of one lone Republican--- would take a stand in defense of the rights of casino workers to be employed in a workplace free of second-hand smoke. Not one single Michigan Legislator would take a stand for casino workers being paid real living wages protected by state and federal labor laws along with the right to organize for collective bargaining. House Democratic Floor Leader Steve Tobacman and Democratic Representative Barbara Farrah did this dirty work for the Fertitta Family and the Kansas City mob which will "skim" the profits from the Gun Lake Casino like they have done in all the other casinos managed by the Fertitta Family. The United Auto Workers union leadership, fearing estrangement and being shunned by the Democratic Party, dropped its feeble opposition to this legislation giving a hint as to how they intend to abandon autoworkers in the present contract negotiations with the "Big Three."

Super Profits and Crises; Modern U.S. Capitalism by Victor Perlo

This is a must read book for anyone wanting to fully understand the present economic crisis.

Victor Perlo was a noted researcher and economist in the Franklin D. Roosevelt and Truman Administrations.

Perlo has made economics easy to understand for everyone.

Did anyone notice former President Jimmy Carter did not address the Democratic National Convention?

Former President Jimmy Carter speaks about his controversial book 'Palestine Peace Not Apartheid' at Jewish-founded Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts January 23, 2007. [Reuters]

Owl on cold winter day

near Jacobson, Minnesota

Minnesotans give United States Senator Norm Coleman a piece of their mind about the Iraq War...

The protest was organized by the Twin Cities Peace Campaign--Focus on Iraq and WAMM (Women Against Military Madness)

As these Minnesotans protested outside Coleman's office...

Others went inside to write their statements calling for an end to this dirty war in Iraq

These protests at Coleman's local office will continue as long as he continues to support the war

Among the concerned citizens opposed to the war in Iraq were members of many church groups, the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, Veterans for Peace, the Minneapolis Club of the Communist Party USA and members of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, Military Families Speak Out... the diversity of the demonstrators reflected a broad cross-section of the Minnesota public.

Destroying a people, their homeland, their right to survive...

Tours of Northern Minnesota...

I offer guided tours of Northern Minnesota that include visits to historic Mesaba Co-op Park, historic buildings and cemetaries on the Iron Range, the Wellstone Memorial, "Mine View," United States Steel's Minntac operation, the Big Bog, Red Lake.
A great opportunity for photographers.
Individual, family, small or large groups. Meals and overnight accomodations can be arranged.
Let's really explore Northern Minnesota.

Working class songs

Grohmann Museum

It's time to start thinking outside the capitalist box...

We need to get off the beaten path and begin to explore the cooperative socialist alternative to capitalism. The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party together with the "Red" Finns on the Iron Range created a solid progressive foundation; we can continue to build on the legacy they left to us as we network and grow our movement for peace and social justice by establishing working class clubs for education and action... now is the time to begin discussing how we are going to put an end to capitalism as we struggle to end this dirty war for oil in Iraq and work towards socialized health care by taking the first step with single-payer, universal health care... these discussions should take place frequently around the kitchen table with family, friends, and fellow workers.

Alan Maki and Fred

Off the beaten path

Writing a Letter the Editor

Write A Letter To The Editor--- a very effective way to influence public opinion.

By: Alan L. Maki

Letters to the Editorare an effective way of speaking to a large group of people, and often getting the attention of elected officials; but, most important is that elected public officials understand that through a Letter to the Editor you are speaking directly to your friends, neighbors and fellow workers in the proverbial public square and these politicians will understand that their own positions are being publicly challenged and people are beginning to “think outside the box” which often leads to movement building.

First, you should pick an issue that you feel strongly about and you are familiar with; citing your own personal experiences with unemployment and poverty or with war makes for a very strong Letter to the Editor.

One important thing to remember is that newspapers like to publish letters that have a local tone; so your letter should address how the issue is pertinent to people in your area.

Also, it is best to always refer to an article that was published in the newspaper you are submitting your letter to. State that you are opposing or supporting the views in the article or editorial. Give the date and page of publication you are referencing.

If you need the address for your local paper, check out this site which has links to newspapersall over Minnesota: http://www.mnnews.com/

Remember to show your published Letter to the Editor to everyone you know; encourage them to write, too.

If you and a couple friends get Letters published you can photo-copy them and use it as a leaflet.

One effective way to use Letters to the Editor to build movements is to write a Letter and then get friends to follow up with Letters of their own on different aspects of the issue.

Remember to stick to the newspaper's guidelines as to limitation on words, etc. that the newspaper establishes.

*If your Letter doesn't get published, call the Editor and ask for the reason your letter wasn't published. Often the Editor will suggest “corrections” that you can make and then you can resubmit the Letter for publication consideration. Also, don't waste a Letter to the Editor; submit it to another paper if one doesn't publish it.

There are some important working class issues many Editors of corporate newspapers will not publish unless pressured to do so. If this happens then take the opportunity to publish your Letter as a leaflet with a big, bold headline like this:The Duluth News-Tribune refused to publish this--- why? What is happening to democracy in our community?

If you are working on an issue or problem, gather together a few people and have a Letter to the Editor writing party at your home, in a union hall, community center, library, church or park. Libraries are good places to have such a party because you have many resources available.

Each of us is like one little snowflake; we don't amount to much... but watch out for a Minnesota blizzard!

Banner used to promote my blog.

One of a few new banners for promoting my blog... click to enlarge; watch for my displays at gatherings, demonstrations, forums--- when you see my displays stop to chat.

How capitalism works...

How capitalism works explained from a worker's perspective...

Abba Ramos, a veteran organizer in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union:

"If they can get a trained monkey to unload that boxcar tomorrow morning, rest assured, they'll have them over there and they'll have some bananas for lunch, and you'll be out on the street looking for work. Simple as that. You've got to remember, they follow only one rule of economic law, and that's that maximum production-minimum cost yields the greatest amount of profit. They don't deviate from that."

In the streets for peace, social and economic justice

St. Paul, Minnesota; March 19, 2011

Money should go to health care and jobs, not wars

Duluth News Tribune

Barack Obama has turned out to be just one more Wall Street flim-flam man and con artist posing as a president while selling health insurance on the side. Here we are spending billions on wars with unemployment soaring as the economy collapses. With Obama’s health-care reform, the for-profit health-care system is in an even bigger mess.

Listening to Democrats making excuses for Obama has been sickening. People voted for peace and got more war. People voted for health-care reform and got a health insurance industry bailout and profit maximization act. The Democrats scream, “Jobs, jobs, jobs!” and we get more unemployment and poverty-wage jobs.

Common sense tells us to end these dirty wars and use the money to pay for a world-class, socialized, health-care system, providing free health care for all, which would create as many as 10 million new jobs with the enforcement of affirmative action.

Every single delegate to the Minnesota DFL State Convention in Duluth should have to pass through a gauntlet of warriors for peace and social justice, insisting on the change they voted for. If we can’t get peace with social justice out of the Democratic Party, we are going to have to look elsewhere —possibly start a new political party.

Alan L. Maki

Warroad, Minnesota.

The writer is a delegate to the 2010 Minnesota DFL State Convention in Duluth.

The class struggle.

An open letter to: The organizers of the “Minnesota Tea Parties.”

Thursday, April 16, 2009

An open letter to:

The organizers of the “Minnesota Tea Parties.”

What kind of ideas do you people have if you are afraid to debate and fear the ideas of others?

You are no better than, certainly no alternative to, Barack Obama and the pathetic Democrats and the even more corrupt and disgraced Republicans.

Come on, put your ideas up against a real socialist.

I challenge you to hold debates in everyone of the Minnesota communities where you had your big-business/Wall Street financed “Tea Parties.”

Just give me the dates and times and I will be there to debate any of you on the issues you claim to be so concerned about.

It is easy for you to rant and rave against the perverted caricature of socialism you have created without having to sit side by side with a socialist and debate the issues.

Here I am… let’s have at it… or are you afraid to put your ideas out where they can be challenged in the “public square.”

Alan L. Maki

Director of Organizing,

Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council

When I try to post this message on the Tea Bagger's blog I keep getting this message with my posting never posted:

Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

What I see in your Tea Party “movement” is:

1. racism2. vicious anti-communism3. warmongers4. people sucked in by Wall Street5. a gross distortion of “patriotism.”

I would encourage all of you to read “Citizen Tom Paine” by Howard Fast and his other historical novels on the American Revolution to get some kind of basic grounding and understanding as to what constitutes fighting for freedom, justice and liberty.

You really have a very shallow understanding of the issues.

For instance—

Why no mention of this “little” fact:

Our government is wasting trillions of dollars maintaining over 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil dotting the globe in countries where we have no business when, instead, we should be establishing 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States providing free health care for everyone.

It is easy for you all to say things like you do using assumed names and monikers… I am wondering if you would dare to say such pathetically stupid, harmful and hurtful things if you had to sign your real names and provide contact information?

I would challenge any of you to debate these issues: anytime, anyplace anywhere.

Barack Obama and the greedy Wall Street pigs he represents

Banner used for promoting my blog.

One have a few new banners for promoting my blog... click to enlarge; watch for my displays at gatherings, demonstrations, forums--- when you see my displays stop to chat.

The United States has 800 military bases on foreign soil...

What we need--- instead--- is 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States where people can universally access, for free, all their health care needs from pre-natal care, to general health care to eye, dental and mental care right through to burial.

Instead of moving in this progressive direction, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are moving in a most reactionary direction towards establishing military bases in outer space as they seek to insure the profits of both the merchants of death and destruction and the profit-driven health care industries... talk about skewed priorities and your wacky ideas devoid of common sense.

In addition to these 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil, Barack Obama and the United States Congress continue funding--- with our tax-dollars--- the Israeli killing machine to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

A network of 800 public health care centers spread out across the United States would create over four-million good-paying, decent jobs--- talk about your "economic stimulus" package!

We would be planting the seeds of socialism while helping to eradicate poverty as we keep people healthy and get them well when sick.

Think about this kind of solution in relation to what Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and the Wall Street bankers and coupon clippers are offering the American people, and the peoples of the world... just what is the reason for bailing out the banks and AIG and maintaining more than 800 expensive U.S. military bases of foreign soil?

The Mt. Carmel Clinic in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada offers us a glimpse at what militarization and wars continue to rob us of.

The problems created by Wall Street will not be solved as long as the military-financial-industrial complex is allowed to squander human and natural resources on militarism and wars... we might just as well be dumping these resources out into the ocean... at least no one would die in wars.

These merchants of death and destruction must be stopped if humanity is to survive in a livable world.

The time has come to talk about the working class Marxist politics and economics of livelihood... capitalism has failed humanity miserably and left us a real mess.

Something for working people to think about and discuss around the dinner table... the capitalist sooth-Sayers certainly are not going to broach such solutions to the problems of working people as they hide behind the skirt of Rosy Scenario as this global capitalist economic depressionintensifies.

Alan Maki

My old friend... Coleman Young

A real fighter for working people

Olive Trees Outside Bethlehem Wall

You won't see this photograph on any American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) post card. Click on picture to read the article: Obama Needs Some Internet Virtual Reality On This Trip

Commentary on American culture...

Minnesotans say: End the war in Iraq... IMPEACH Bush & Cheney

Minnesotans demand an end to the war in Iraq

This demonstration is at the offices of United States Senator Republican Norm Coleman who has been one of Bush's main boosters for the war but is apparently beginning to waffle as Election Day approaches. Several peace activists are set to challenge Coleman... including DFL'ers Jim Cohen, Al Franken & Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, and Mike Cavlan of the Green Party

A new banner to promote my blog

Banner for promoting my blog.

One have a few new banners for promoting my blog... click to enlarge; watch for my displays at gatherings, demonstrations, forums--- when you see my displays stop to chat.

Simple Crusty Bread

[This recipe, from the New York Times, really is simple and produces a crusty crust and soft interior. It uses the bare minimum of ingredients, and no kneading, and works fine with either free-standing or pan loaves. Next time I may enhance it with sun-dried tomatoes, or Kalamata olives, or onions.]

1½ tablespoons yeast

1½ tablespoons salt

6½ cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough

Cornmeal.

* * * Directions * * *

1. In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water.

Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches.

Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid.

Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours).

2. Bake at this point; or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks.

When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife.

Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom.

Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes.

Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. [Instead of this, I spritzed the oven with water several times during the baking.]

Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times [once worked fine].

Slide onto stone.

Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam.

Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes.

Cool.

Yield: 4 loaves.

Variation: If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a greased loaf pan.

Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour if refrigerated.

Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes.

Place pan on middle rack.

Here is a good recipe for Au Gratin Potatoes:

Nine ingredients…

A. 9 large potatoes

B. 1 16 oz container sour cream

C. 2 cans cheddar cheese soup

D. 1/2 cup melted butter

E. 2 tsp salt

F. pepper to taste

G. 1 pint half and half or regular milk or evaporated

H. onion – optional

I. 12 oz package of mild shredded cheddar cheese

Seven easy steps…

1. Cut uncooked potatoes in thin slices

2. Spray 9x13 pan with oil spray

3. Layer cut potatoes in oiled pan

4. Mix above ingredients together

5. Pour ingredients on top of potatoes

6. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until potatoes are soft and done

Flint Sit-down Strike Memorial

UAW first contract with General Motors

Signing for the Union was Wyndham Mortimer, head organizer and member of the Communist Party USA

Boycott Israel... stop the pogroms against the Palestinian people...

From Leonard Cohen's, "The Energy of Slaves"

Any system you contrive without us

Any system you contrive without uswill be brought downWe warned you beforeand nothing that you built has stoodHear it as you lean over your blueprintHear it as you roll up your sleeveHear it once againAny system you contrive without uswill be brought downYou have your drugsYou have your gunsYou have your Pyramids your PentagonsWith all your grass and bulletsyou cannot hunt us any moreAll that we disclose of ourselves foreveris this warningNothing that you built has stoodAny system you contrive without uswill be brought down

Coney-Roney

recipe below

Recipe for Coney-Roney:

Crock Pot Method

Put the beef and turkey meet in the crock pot and let it cook for at least 35 minutes:1 lb of Angus Ground Beef1 lb of Premium Ground Turkey

Season the meat with this:1 tablespoon of Curry1 tablespoon of Lawry's1 tablespoon of black pepper

Then add the Veggies:

1 - small or large can of corn (drained)1 - Jar of Paul Newman's Tomato Sauce1- Can of diced tomatos1 - diced Onion1 - Cut up bunch of Cilantro2 - "Hand full's of either Minute Rice or Regular Rice

After the meat has cooked for 35 minutes just throw the rest of the stuff in including the sauce and put the lid back on the crock pot. The food will be ready to eat in about an hour. Remember, the longer you let it cook at low in the crock pot, the flavor will get better.

As posted to FaceBook by Donald Allen

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* WPA - three million new jobs.

* CCC - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.

A message from Wisconsin...

NASTURTIUM CHICKEN KEBABS

1 LB Chicken Breasts Fillets,Cubed

1/3 Cup Herb Vinegar

1/3 Cup Garlic Oil

1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce

1 Teaspoon Crushed Fresh Ginger

1 Tablespoon Sherry

24 Button Mushrooms

24 Cherry Tomatoes

1 Green Pepper,Cubed

1 Red Pepper,Cubed

12 Pickling Onions

2 Tablespoon Chopped Chives

8 Nasturtium Flowers,Chopped

Pickled Nasturtium Seeds,Chopped

1/4 Cup Plain Yogurt

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Nasturtium Leaves

Marinate the chicken in a glass dish overnight in the combined vinegar,garlic oil,soy sauce,ginger and sherry.

Drain the chicken and reserve the marinade.

Thread the chicken and vegetables alternately onto 8 skewers.

Grill or barbecue the kebabs,brushing with the reserved marinade,until cooked through.

Combine the chives,nasturtium flowers and seeds then mix the plain yogurt and salt and pepper to make a dressing.

Remove the kebabs from the skewers and serve on the nasturtium leaves.

Citizens in Minnesota are being encouraged to see scarcity as the new normal. If you are an elected official at any level of government, your job has been reduced to managing austerity.

It doesn't have to be this way -- if we address the elephant lurking in the budget deficit hall. That would be the high costs of militarization and war.

Technically, the military budget is a federal issue, distinct from state, county and city budgets. However, we can no longer maintain the fiction that distorted federal spending that prioritizes war and militarism is disconnected from state and local budget crises and is eroding living standards.

According to the nonpartisan National Priorities Project, Congress devotes 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending to war-related purposes. To better understand the impact on Minnesota of privileging military spending priorities, consider this: We have just experienced a painful government shutdown over how to deal with a two-year $5 billion shortfall. Yet Minnesota taxpayers over the same two-year period will spend $8.4 billion just for our share of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

This will bring Minnesotans' total contribution to those wars to about $36 billion. Additionally over the next two years, Minnesotans will pay $26 billion for our share of the nation's base military budget, a budget that has doubled since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Every Minnesota citizen and every layer of government is impacted negatively by current war-related priorities. Faced with pressing local needs, taxpayers in Fergus Falls will pay $17 million for their share of counterproductive Iraq/Afghan wars over the next two years; Minneapolis taxpayers will contribute $255 million.

We believe it is time for Minnesotans to communicate clearly to our members of Congress and to President Obama that federal funding priorities must shift from unnecessary wars to meeting essential needs. A new citizen-driven effort, the Minnesota Arms Spending Alternatives Project (MNasap), is a vehicle for doing so.

We have crafted a simple resolution that can be adapted and enacted by individuals, community groups, library boards, city councils and other elected bodies throughout the state. It reads in part: "Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation ... Therefore [we] call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all."

The state government shutdown has ended, but the pain will be ongoing for many Minnesotans. As a recent Star Tribune editorial ("New budget rests on shaky structure," July 20) states, borrowing against future state revenues and delaying school payments will have serious consequences, and the budget "inflicts too much pain. The hurt will be felt most keenly on college campuses and among those who serve low-income disabled and elderly people."

Imagine what we can accomplish if we stop squandering wealth and talents on militarization and counterproductive wars. Schools could reduce class sizes and have adequate supplies. Bridges could be repaired. Food shelves could be adequately stocked but rarely needed. We could take steps to make homelessness rare and temporary. Cities and states could adequately provide essential services, including meeting their authentic security needs. Critical investments could be made in infrastructure and green technologies. Public libraries could expand hours and programming. Urban and national rail systems could be built. The country could address climate change and end child poverty. All Americans could have access to quality, affordable health care.

This sounds like a fantasy only because current choices keep us on the dead-end road of militarization. It is a realistic possibility once we demilitarize priorities, realistically assess security needs and refocus governing on serving the common good.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is associate professor of justice and peace studies at the University of St. Thomas. Bill Hilty, DFL-Finlayson, is a member of the Minnesota House. For information on the resolution campaign, contact MinnesotaASAP@gmail.com

Previously Pallmeyer and Hilty authored this resolution:

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering Priorities

Resolution Calling for Re-ordering PrioritiesResolution Calling for Re-ordering of Priorities:

Whereas past budget cuts have resulted in painful reductions in essential services and future cuts would further erode the quality of life for and, in fact, endanger the lives of many citizens; and,

Whereas many cities and communities in Minnesota are laying off police, firefighters, teachers and other essential employees; and,

Whereas past budgets have been balanced by cutting social services, under investment in essential infrastructure, and other measures that push the crisis onto local governments and the poor; and,

Whereas Minnesota taxpayers even during these times of economic crisis and fiscal austerity are poised to pay the equivalent of the entire state biennial budget, more than $35 billion over the next two years, for their share of the Defense Budget of the Federal government; and,

Whereas Minnesota taxpayers alone have already spent more than $27.5 billion, and will spend $8.4 billion more over the next two years for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and,

Whereas 58 cents of every dollar of federal discretionary spending is devoted to military purposes; and,

Whereas military spending priorities at the national level negatively impact budgets and quality of life at all levels of government and society; and,

Whereas our nation desperately needs to better balance its approach to security to go beyond military defense and include the economic, social, and environmental needs of our communities, state, and nation;

Therefore be it resolved that we, the Legislature of the State of Minnesota call on Senators Klobuchar and Franken, and Representatives Walz, Kline, Paulsen, McCollum, Ellison, Bachmann, Peterson and Cravaack as well as Congressional leadership and President Barack Obama, to shift federal funding priorities from war and the interests of the few, to meeting the essential needs of us all.

Approved [date]

Drafted by Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty.

A more comprehensive alternative I put together based on talks with people across the Great Lakes Region:

A program for real change...

* Peace--- end the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and shutdown the 800 U.S. military bases on foreign soil.

* A National Public Health Care System - ten million new jobs.

* A National Public Child Care System - three to five million new jobs.

* Works Progress Administration - three million new jobs.

* Civilian Conservation Corps - two million new jobs.

* Tax the hell out of the rich and cut the military budget by ending the wars to pay for it all which will create full employment.

* Enforce Affirmative Action; end discrimination.

* Raise the minimum wage to a real living wage

* What tax-payers subsidize in the way of businesses, tax-payers should own and reap the profits from.

* Moratorium on home foreclosures and evictions.

* Defend democracy by defending workers' rights including the right to collective bargaining for improving the lives and livelihoods of working people.

* Roll-back and freeze the price of food, electricity, gas and heating fuels; not wages, benefits or pensions.

* Wall Street is our enemy.

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

Let's talk about the politics and economics of livelihood for a real change.

Obviously the resolutions by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party State Representative Bill Hilty will never be realized as government policy while we are stuck in this "two-party trap" because militarism and wars are an integral and primary component of Wall Street's imperialist agenda.

Basic Pizza Dough

Warm a medium mixing bowl by swirling some hot water in it. Drain. Place the yeast in the bowl, and pour on the warm water. Stir in the sugar, mix with a fork, and allow to stand until the yeast has dissolved and starts to foam, 5-10 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to mix in the salt and about one-third of the flour. Mix in another third of the flour, stirring with the spoon until the dough forms a mass and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle some of the remaining flour onto a smooth work surface. Remove the dough from the bowl and begin to knead it, working in the remaining flour a little at a time. Knead for 8-10 minutes. By the end the dough should be elastic and smooth. Form it into a ball. Lightly oil a mixing bowl. Place the dough in the bowl. Stretch a moistened and wrung-out dish towel across the top of the bowl, and leave it to stand in a warm place until the dough has doubled in volume, about 40-50 minutes or more, depending on the type of yeast you used. (If you do not have a warm enough place, turn the oven on to medium heat for 10 minutes before you knead the dough. Turn it off. Place the bowl with the dough in it in the turned off oven with the door closed and let it rise there.) To test whether the dough has risen enough, poke two fingers into the dough. If the indentions remain, the dough is ready. Punch the dough down with your fist to release the air. Knead for 1-2 minutes. Divide dough into smaller balls.

Roll to desired thickness, top with desired ingredients, and bake at 475° until crust is crispy and golden (about 10 minutes).

The trick is to ALWAYS use a pizza stone to bake on, it is not nearly as good and crispy if you don’t...